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Dana Milbank, Washington PostAs of Jan. 20, Chuck Schumer will be the most important Democrat in the land. But spend a few minutes with the incoming Senate minority leader and it’s clear where the real power lies.

Fred Barnes, The Weekly StandardShortly after his inauguration in 2009, President Obama invited Republican leaders in Congress to a White House meeting. The House members brought a proposal with ideas for stimulating the economy, then suffering through the Great Recession. In the meeting, Eric Cantor, then the House minority leader, suggested a small business-related tax cut. A few days later, Obama complained Republicans had decided to oppose his stimulus before he had spoken to their conference. Republicans had a reason. House Democrats had already drafted the bill without consulting them. Every GOP idea had been left...

David Leonhardt, New York TimesThe phrase “American dream” was invented during the Great Depression. It comes from a popular 1931 book by the historian James Truslow Adams, who defined it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.”

Steven Malanga, City JournalPresident-elect Donald Trump garnered both acclamation and censure for his effort last week to stop Carrier Corporation from moving 1,000 manufacturing jobs to Mexico. Trump succeeded in part because the state of Indiana provided expensive tax incentives to the company and the president-elect himself threatened to impose a tariff on Carrier products produced outside the U.S. That’s a strategy which, if repeated every time a business threatened to take jobs overseas, would hardly amount to a win for American taxpayers and consumers. If Trump is really going to deliver on his pledge to...

Bryan Dean Wright, LA TimesPresident Obama on Tuesday delivered his final defense of the nation's counter-terrorism strategy. He rightfully claimed progress on a number of fronts, including the death of Osama bin Laden , an end to waterboarding and the effective use of drones to kill terrorists. Just one week after the Islamic State -inspired attack in Columbus, Ohio, he also reiterated that there is no war between the United States and Islam. Islamic State and Al Qaeda , he said, do not speak for Muslims everywhere.

John Rosengren, The AtlanticOn the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Mark Moyar, New York TimesAmong global elites, Donald J. Trump’s recent phone call with Taiwan’s president has induced fear on a scale seldom matched since Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech. The Sydney Morning Herald warned that the phone call “risks provoking a cold war between the United States and China with potentially catastrophic economic and security implications.” The fright appears to confirm the narrative formed earlier this year by headlines like “Donald Trump Terrifies World Leaders.”

Sens. Cardin & Feinstein, USA TodayPresident Obama is right — if President-elect Donald Trump succeeds, America succeeds. But the opposite is equally true. The costs of a failed Trump presidency would be profound for the security of the United States and countries around the world. With each passing day, we grow increasingly concerned that President-elect Trump fails to grasp the solemn, serious responsibilities that come with being our nation’s commander in chief. Protecting and advancing our national security interests is arguably the president’s most important duty.

Seth Lipsky, New York PostAfter eight years of blaming America’s problems on George W. Bush, the press that got the election wrong is rolling out a new line — that President Obama is handing President-elect Donald Trump a booming economy. That takes some brass.

Jay Michaelson, The Daily BeastEvery scientist not on the corporate dole is upset about Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Like Betsy DeVos, who wants to destroy public education, and Jeff Sessions, who wants to destroy the Voting Rights Act, Pruitt is against the very laws he will soon be in charge of enforcing.

Patrick Michaels, The HillOklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s nomination for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is as clear a signal as the incoming administration can send with regard to its environmental policies. It is also a sign that the administration is far more meticulous, internally consistent and thorough than its detractors have thought, and that it is on a clear mission not just to stop, but to reverse many of the actions of Obama’s EPA.

Kotkin & Cox, RealClearPoliticsFrom its inception, the American experiment has been dogged by racial issues. Sadly, this was even truer this year. Eight years after electing the first African-American president, not only are race relations getting worse, according to surveys, but the electorate remains as ethnically divided as in any time of recent history. Donald Trump has emerged in most media accounts as the candidate of Anglo voters, with a margin of 21 percentage points over Hillary Clinton among that segment of the electorate. Clinton’s embrace of “identity” politics may have played a role...

Gruber & Sommers, Boston GlobeAS THE NEW administration and Republican allies in Congress plan their agenda for 2017, repeal of the Affordable Care Act is front and center. Senate Republicans last week put out a policy statement reiterating their plans to roll back the law and claimed — in part based on our research — that this would have only modest effects on the number of Americans without health insurance. Simply put, this is wrong and a misleading characterization of our work and that of others who have studied the ACA’s impact.

Michael Warren, Weekly StandardIt's the opportunity Republicans have been awaiting for six years, which invites the obvious question: Are they going to screw it up? In January, a united Republican Congress and Republican White House will finally have the ability to dispose of Obamacare, the unpopular and destructive health-insurance law. After running four straight national elections against the jammed-through, unconstitutional, failing, expensive, and disastrous Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the GOP finally has the power to do something about it.It didn't take long for Republican leadership in both houses of...

Linda Greenhouse, New York TimesIn a recent issue of Judicature, an academic journal for judges published by Duke University Law School, Timothy J. Corrigan, a federal district judge in Florida, reflected on “the most multifaceted, emotional, and challenging task a judge performs ” — sentencing convicted criminal defendants. Judge Corrigan wrote about the broad discretion that district judges exercise, describing experiences from his 14 years on the bench that were both heart-rending (tear-stained letters from young children begging mercy for their parents) and hair-raising (an assassination attempt). The...

George Will, Washington PostSo, this is the new conservatism’s recipe for restored greatness: Political coercion shall supplant economic calculation in shaping decisions by companies in what is called, with diminishing accuracy, the private sector. This will be done partly as conservatism’s challenge to liberalism’s supremacy in the victimhood sweepstakes, telling aggrieved groups that they are helpless victims of vast, impersonal forces, against which they can be protected only by government interventions.

James Arkin, RealClearPoliticsFor 77 minutes on Thursday morning, Sen. Harry Reid reflected on his life, family, hometown and career in Washington as he spoke for the final time on the Senate floor after 30 years in the chamber. Then, hours later, as his official Senate portrait was unveiled, Reid – the quiet but hard-nosed Democratic leader of the last decade – was honored with speeches from pre-eminent politicos from both sides of the aisle: Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Reid’s successor, Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Jill Abramson, GuardianSince Trump won the election, the focus on his fringe connections has largely receded. Coverage of the new administration has quickly normalized. Washington reporters seem relieved to be covering a familiar ritual, the competition for top jobs in the Trump administration. Stories on Trump’s many conflicts of interest and abandoned promises have appeared, but none seem to resonate with the public.

Ace, Ace of SpadesLore is kind of communal bullshit -- bullshit about your family legacy (how many people have "family lore" that tells them they're one thirty-second Cherokee, for example*), bullshit about sex, bullshit about how not to get pregnant, bullshit about how to increase your sexual potency (oysters! powdered rhino horn! gorilla dick jerky!). There is of course political lore -- a tradition of bullshit passed from one partisan to another, never really sourced to anything a rationalist would call an authority or proof. Just stuff that "everyone knows."

Ruth Marcus, Washington PostAs if she didn't have enough on her hands with the president-elect, Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway has plunged full-force into a topic at least as emotionally charged: the Mommy Wars. Speaking at a Politico "Women Rule" event Wednesday, Conway cited her four young children as the reason for declining a White House job. "My children are 12, 12, 8 and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside," she said. "They have to come first and those are very fraught ages."

Christina Hoff Sommers, Chicago TribuneHillary Clinton's defeat is wreaking havoc in the sisterhood. Celebrity feminists are especially distraught. "Girls" star Lena Dunham developed hives and fled to Sedona for spiritual renewal. Katy Perry took to Twitter to declare "THE REVOLUTION IS COMING." For feminist icon Robin Morgan, the election is proof that "a diseased patriarchy is in a battle to the death with women."

David Shribman, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteJohn Herschel Glenn Jr. — twice an astronaut, four times elected to the Senate, once a presidential candidate, 149 times a combat fighter pilot and forever an American symbol and hero — died Dec. 8, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95. Mr. Glenn was a test pilot, a Mercury astronaut, an advocate of moderation in the Senate and in the Democratic Party, a prescient voice of warning against nuclear proliferation, a space shuttle payload specialist and a symbol of the vigor that Americans — whether as youthful dreamers or active seniors — brought to the 20th century. In...